


The Cruelest Month

by Sheheisk



Series: Once More into the Night [1]
Category: Fury (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Groundhog Day (1993) Fusion, Except for Lt. Parker, M/M, Norman has a bad day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21998995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheheisk/pseuds/Sheheisk
Summary: Norman Ellison gets to live the worst day of his life over and over again. (Groundhog Day AU)
Relationships: Don "Wardaddy" Collier/Norman "Machine" Ellison
Series: Once More into the Night [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729627
Comments: 6
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

**April 8 th, 1945**

“Any man that can walk is fine,” somebody was saying.

Norman cracked open his eyes. He’d fallen asleep in the half-track after they’d evacuated him. More men had joined him in the back since he’d been sleeping, crammed shoulder to shoulder along the benches. The back of the truck was open, and outside, his old platoon lieutenant, Hopper, was standing next to a Master Sergeant with a clipboard who looked awfully familiar. Norman had seen him yesterday morning too.

“You,” the Master Sergeant said to Norman in a broad southern drawl. “You’re being reassigned. Report to Sgt. Collier. 1st platoon, 66th Armored.”

Norman blinked at him, pulling himself upright. “Excuse me?”

“You deaf, boy?” the Master Sergeant barked. 

Norman looked around, a little wildly. Looking at their faces, all the men in the truck were familiar; they were each from his old 5th Army platoon. He was in a brand-new field jacket, the same one he’d put on the first time yesterday, a mist of rain beading on the crisp green fabric. Outside, the forward operating base was terribly familiar. It was the exact same one as yesterday.

A hand clamped around his arm and the Master Sergeant dragged him off the back of the truck. It was a transport truck with an open top, the same one he’d been on yesterday, not the half-track at all. The men inside were all looking at him with mingled pity and relief. They were glad it wasn’t them. They’d done that yesterday, too.

Norman had to be dreaming. The medics had given him morphine when they pulled him out of the tank; he didn’t need it, but he’d been grateful for anything that might put him to sleep. He regretted it now.

“Well?” The Master Sergeant was getting red in the face waiting for Norman to say something, his thick eyebrows almost meeting over his nose.

"No sir," Norman said slowly. “I’m not deaf.”

"Then get your shit and get moving.”

Norman slowly fished his duffel from below his seat. Nobody helped him grab it this time. The Master Sergeant left with one last glare at Norman, scribbling something down on his clipboard. Lt. Hopper patted Norman on the shoulder sympathetically and without another word went around to the front of the truck.

The first time around, Norman had tried to argue. "I'm not trained to serve in a tank unit," he'd said.

The Master Sergeant had shut that down quick. "You got two hands and a rifle, dontcha?"

Norman stood in place, looking around. Off beside the barn, rising up above the swarm of activity, he saw the Fury. A couple hours ago she’d been pockmarked with thousands of bullets, her tread unfurled on the ground. A coffin for the men of Love-One-Six. Beside her are the other tanks in the platoon – Lucy Sue, Murder Inc, Old Phyliss and Matador. He’d seen them all burn that afternoon.

Now, they’re all in front of him, all unharmed. 

This had to be some sort of morphine-induced hallucination, or stress-related breakdown, or maybe the Krauts had invented a new form of gas. Hell, maybe they'd figured out how to reverse time, and he'd somehow gotten caught in it.

Normal didn’t know what to do. It all felt too real to be a dream. He could smell the cow carcasses rotting in the field, and the surface of the puddle he was standing in was shivering from the artillery strikes, and his fingers were cold on the strap of his bag.

It was the same as yesterday. It was the same day. Which meant, even if he was only hallucinating it, that the crew was still alive.

He started walking. Sure enough, when he passed one of the buildings, he found Sergeant Collier standing barely ten yards away from the Fury. "Sergeant Collier?" he called out, heart in his throat.

Collier looked up, annoyed. "Maybe. What the fuck are you?"

Norman stared at him. Last time he’d seen Collier, his face had been missing; Norman had draped his field jacket over what was left of his body, then taken the revolver from his hands and settled down beside his corpse, waiting to die.

Here, Collier was still alive. A little beat up and covered in a layer of mud and glaring at Norman, but alive. “The fuck's wrong with you, kid?”

Norman finally dropped his gaze, trying to work some moisture into his mouth. "Nothing, sir. I'm your new assistant driver."

“No. No, you are not,” Collier said, and turned away.

Norman remembered that from the first time. He’d been so anxious about making a bad impression on his new sergeant, scared of the man’s scarred and hardened face, terrified about heading up to the front. He’d chased after Collier. This time, he couldn’t move his feet.

After a moment, Collier turned around and took a few steps back toward him. “Who told you this?

“The Master Sergeant,” Norman said.

“Bullshit,” Collier said, still glaring down at him. “What’s your name?”

“Norman.”

Collier’s mouth worked a bit, like that was the wrong answer. Norman stared up at him helplessly. Collier was close enough that Norman could smell the stink of blood and gunpowder on him.

Something in Collier’s expression relented. “How long you been in the Army?”

“Twelve weeks basic, two weeks coming over here,” Norman said, rote. One day in the Fury, where they all died except for him, and now he was standing there like it had never happened.

Collier sighed and gestured at the Fury. “That’s home. Do as you’re told. Don’t get close to anyone.”

Instead of leaving, Norman studied Collier’s face. He would’ve given anything to have Sgt. Collier alive again a few hours ago, but this made him feel sick to his stomach. The only thing he could think of was how Collier’s handsome face looked without any skin, mashed to a pulp from the German grenades.

Collier raised his eyebrows at Norman. “Get moving,” he said, and walked away.

Seeing the tank crew scrambling over the Fury was just as hard. Norman had hoped it would be a good thing, seeing them again, but all it did was remind him that they were all dead. He should’ve told the Master Sergeant to fuck off and tried to wake up.

“Hi. I’m Norman,” he said.

They stared him down, stone-faced, until a very real and alive Gordo took his duffel and rummaged through it. They were all filthy, and look exhausted; Norman was uncomfortably aware of how clean he was in his new uniform.

“Where’s your cigarettes?” Gordo demanded.

“I don’t smoke,” Norman said. “You could have my ration next time, though.”

“You motherfucker,” Gordo said, but he handed Norman’s bag back rather than throwing it in the mud.

“You go to tank school?” Bible asked.

“I’m a clerk typist,” Norman said, and then added, “I learn fast, though.”

To hell with it — if he had to relive this day, he wanted them to like him this time.

-

They still made him clean up the bow gunner’s seat and the remains of Red’s face, though. At least this time he didn’t puke.

-

Gordo instructed him how to harvest the most meat per bullet when they rolled out on the flank guard mission, the first of an unforgiving day. The road was barely worth the name, muddy and rutted from the spring rain. The same German civilians as yesterday were staggering down the road in an endless march.

“Our tanks are shitboxes,” Gordo said, indicating the interior with a nod. “You see how thin the metal is? We get hit, I’m gone, right through the escape hatch. See that? Can’t wait for nobody else to get out. I ain’t helping you. Got it?”

“Sure,” Norman said. “How much combat do you usually see in a day?”

“Too much. We just got back from another mission. We were the only survivors. This here is the final push. We ain’t had a day of leave in months. They sent us into the Ardennes this winter. I nearly froze my balls off. Before that, North Africa. Sweating my balls off chasing around fuckin’ Rommel. I tell you what, kid, I hope these motherfuckers surrender soon so I could get an afternoon off and take a shit. I ain’t had a good shit since Belgium.”

“Quit yapping, Gordo,” Collier said from his perch in the commander’s basket. “Kid, you hear me, you plugged in?”

Norman had forgotten, again. He fumbled his helmet onto his head. “I hear you, Sarge.”

Gordo sighed. “Wardaddy thinks we’re all gonna save the world, but me? I just want to get drunk in Paris, fuck a cabaret dancer, and get a full night’s sleep. Hey, kid, you play cards?”

“I don’t,” Norman admitted.

“You’re a bastard,” Gordo told him sincerely.

-

The same thing happened, of course, because it was the same day. Norman kept his eyes right the entire time until he spotted the kid with the rocket launcher darting through the trees beside the road. This time he cut the kid down with the greasegun before he could get a round off.

The whole right flank of the convoy erupted in shooting. Everyone was yelling. Norman couldn’t even see the body through the underbrush. Bullets chopped the leaves off the oak trees and sent splinters flying.

“What the fuck are we shooting at?” someone yelled. The shooting spluttered down barely a second later, a few lone bursts ending the brief firefight.

Collier hopped out of his turret without a word to them, down the side of the Fury and out into the woods. His gun was loose in his hands, like he was out for a stroll. He disappeared for a moment behind the trees.

“Didja see a squirrel or something?” Coon-ass asked from behind the .50cal gun.

“Got an enemy soldier with an anti-tank rocket,” Collier said crisply when he came back, and climbed up the Fury, past Norman’s seat. He tapped him on the helmet. “Good work.”

Norman flinched, remembering how Collier slammed his head into the hatch last time, and then realized his hands were shaking, sending tremors down the barrel of his gun. He let go and exhaled.

Gordo grinned at him as he put the Fury back in gear. “Nice shooting, choirboy. You did good.”

“Thanks,” Norman said, almost giddy with relief. He did it. He fixed it. Lt. Parker and his men were alive; Lt. Parker yelled at them to move out, and they did, second in the line. Norman didn’t look back at where he shot the kid.

-

There was what seemed like an entire battalion packed into the small settlement along the road. The radios buzzed with chatter. Men shot big guns into the distance at targets Norman couldn’t see.

The tanks came to a halt along the mud-stricken main road and Lt. Parker went off to report to the commanding officer. Last time around, Norman could barely see anything through the gray haze of fear; this time, he stuck close to Gordo as the men crawled out of the tank and lit up cigarettes, broke into their ration packs, and checked their weapons.

“We’re going into it again,” Gordo said, pointing his cigarette at Lt. Parker, who was coming out of the ramshackle barn, buckling up his helmet. They were all sitting on the Fury, waiting for orders. “Look. You can see it rolling downhill.”

“Lord bless us, for these Krauts we’re about to fuck up,” Coon-ass said, looking up at Bible to gauge his reaction. Bible smiled serenely.

“Quit laying around, you fuckin’ princesses,” Collier said, even though they’d all been doing exactly that. He jumped off the Fury. “Let’s get ready to mount up.”

-

They moved out with Lt. Parker leading the platoon. Each tank had at least ten infantry men riding on top, like kids on a haystack ride. Norman frowned when they kept driving down the road rather than flanking through the field.

“They’ve got to have us zeroed on this road,” Collier muttered from the commander’s basket. “I told him we should be going through the fucking field.”

The silence was tense. Turning his head, Norman could see the field they’d attacked through the first time, where the troops were dug in and pinned down. There was no fire from the German line yet.

Lt. Parker’s voice came through the comms. “All tanks, halt. Drop your troops and button up. We’re going in.”

The infantry officers echoed the call. The infantry scrambled off the tank, knocking their boots against the side. Norman dropped into the Fury and closed his hatch. He still couldn’t make out much of anything through the periscope, but he knew there was a line of tanks and cannons out there, just behind the screen of trees, waiting to tear them to shreds. He wished Collier was leading them. The LT sounded tense on the comms.

“All tanks, move out,” Parker ordered.

They continued down the road at a crawl. Norman remembered the bump and rattle of the tanks plowing through the trees and into the field last time. This time they were creeping forward in a line. Norman didn’t know much about tactics, but he did think this would be much easier to shell.

Collier was right – the Germans had the road zeroed. Norman was right, too. Their cannons didn’t miss.

**April 8 th, 1945**

Norman woke up with a jolt on the back of a transport truck. The Master Sergeant was pointing at him. “You,” he said. “You’re being reassigned.”


	2. Chapter 2

Norman figured he was in hell. There was no explaining it otherwise.

He got assigned to Collier. He met the men for the third time. Bible asked if he’d been saved.

“I’m not saved,” Norman said. “I’m in hell.”

“Amen,” Coon-ass said around his cigarette.

When they reached the familiar clump of trees, Norman hesitated, and the kid nailed the Matador with the anti-tank rocket. Lt. Parker bailed out of the hatch, engulfed in flames, and put his own gun to his head while Norman watched, stupefied.

“Norman, you cocksucker,” Collier yelled, sptting mad, when he came back from checking on the kid’s corpse.

Norman stared at him while he yelled; everything felt dull and muted. Collier fisted a hand in his collar and forced him to look at it all. The Matador was a burning shell, and so was the lieutenant’s body, prone in the mud beside it.

It didn't seem to matter as much, this time. He'd already died twice.

Collier slammed Norman’s head into the side of the hatch twice before climbing back into the turret, just like he had the first time. Norman didn’t know what to do; it seemed like there wasn’t any way to play the situation perfectly, even if he had another chance, even if, terrifyingly, he had a thousand more chances.

-

“Try fucking shooting something this time,” Coon-ass suggested as they went to rescue Baker company.

Collier was leading them, and he instructed the other tanks to cut through the field and the thin row of trees off the road. Norman could barely see anything from the periscope; he only got flashes of impressions as the tank lurched through the field – some trees in the distance, some half-tracks burning. Collier barked out orders above his head. Norman’s heart beat hard against his ribs.

A machine gun opened up on them. Norman jolted. The bullets pinged off the Fury’s hull, almost like rain on a tin roof. Green tracers zipped all around them. Bible fired off a shell, but it landed short of the machine gun nest.

Norman hoped he would become immune to this, but it was still horrible. It was so fucking loud. Everyone was shouting at each other and the main gun boomed and rattled through the tank, deafening, and Norman had no idea what was happening outside. He fired a short burst at the machine gun nest and missed completely.

Coon-ass chambered the next round and Bible sent it directly into the machine gun nest. Norman watched a ragged torso pinwheel fifty feet up in the air for the second time. Maybe it was destiny for that man to die. Norman didn’t know why he alone should be living all this again, when there was so much death around him.

Barely a second later a shell whistled past the Fury. The other tanks in the platoon lit up the tree line, sending off rounds and shells and machine gun fire, all of it. Bible sent another shell toward the flash; the Jerry gun went up in a huge gout of flame and smoke.

“There’s another one,” Norman said, firing a quick burst of five rounds to where he knew the other shield would be. His tracer deflected up into the air. “Ten o’clock.”

He couldn’t remember how many rounds the enemy tank got off last time. The first shell skipped past them all. Gordo traversed the 75mm gun to the left and barely three seconds later, the enemy tank went up in smoke. Their ammunition exploded, too; it looked like Fourth of July fireworks.

“Start shooting!” Gordo yelled, smacking him in the shoulder.

Norman fumbled up his bow gun. He’d been caught watching the show. He fired a burst over the foxholes and saw a row of German helmets hunker down.

One solider popped up with a _panzerfaust_ on his shoulder, aimed at the Fury. Norman dropped him with a burst of three shots, straight to the center mass, just like they taught in basic.

Gordo’s face was covered in sweat when Norman chanced a glance over at him, expecting praise. “Look at the fucking field. Do your fucking job,” he said without looking over.

Abashed, Norman went back to shooting covering fire over the German foxholes. Don yelled at Gordo to stop to the tank. The infantry was creeping around the tanks, opening up on the Germans with their rifles.

“Hey, squirt those Krauts on the left. Do you see them?” Gordo said.

Norman remembered this moment with clarity. He wished he didn't. It had been too much, too quickly the first time. He’d never seen anyone dead before and then he was getting told to shoot at a pile of corpses. The thought of how he’d broken down was raw, too painful to think about. This time Norman shot a few rounds into the bodies, tearing bloody chunks out of them, making them jerk like they were still alive.

“You never know,” Gordo said, satisfied. “A replacement we got back in Normandy, a Kraut faked dead. Got him with a potato masher. Blew both his legs off to the hip. Took him just a minute to bleed out.”

Norman looked over slowly. Gordo grinned at him. “You know why they call ‘em potato mashers?”

Up above, Collier called for them to continue on foot. Norman slid off his helmet; he was sweating, and it felt blissful to have the heavy equipment off his ears. “Because they mash you up,” he said.

“That’s right,” Gordo said. “They mash you right up.”

-

They’d rescued the infantry pinned down by the heavy fire, and more importantly, Norman hadn’t disgraced himself this time. He was feeling almost optimistic. Focusing on the small things that went right helped him not dwell on the fact that he was living this day for the third time.

The infantry moved up to the front lines, cleaning out the foxholes as they went, some with bayonets and some with the butts of their guns. Some with their bare hands. Medics darted between injured soldiers. Coon-ass and Gordo both scavenged a couple bottles while Bible knelt over mortally wounded men, praying with them.

Norman hadn’t gotten out of his seat yet; he was trying to ride out the shakes, but they only seem to get more powerful the more he tried to shut them down. He didn’t think he’d be much good out there, anyways. He didn’t want to bayonet anyone, or loot any bodies, and he would be useless praying over the men; he’d probably just tell them that this didn't matter, that they might survive the next loop.

He heard Collier drop down into the turret and spin it around. After a moment, he said, “I had the best bow gunner in the entire ninth army in that seat. Now I got you. I intend to keep my men alive out here. You can’t get in the way of that.”

Norman felt the weight of his gaze and refused to look up. “I’m sorry. I’m trying my best.”

Collier was still staring at him. Something about the way he looked at Norman made him feel like he had to hide all the cringing weakness in his mind, tucking the fear away into secret nooks and crannies so Collier couldn’t see it. It felt like Collier could see right into the back of his head.

There was yelling outside, and Collier stood up. Norman heard someone shouting about a raincoat. He curled up tighter in his seat. This part, he also remembered too well.

After a moment, Collier called, “Norman! Get out here.”

The first time he’d been hesitant to get out of the tank, thinking something bad was going to happen. He’d been right.

“Come on, son,” Collier said.

Norman climbed out of the Fury. Collier put a friendly hand on his back, pushing him forward, into the ring of men. The fucking Kraut was begging in German, holding up some photos, just like last time. The infantry circled up at their backs.

Collier slapped away the photos and kicked the man down, wrestling him into a kneel, forcing him to face away from them. Then he came back and offered his revolver to Norman.

Norman stared at him, lost. It really was going to happen, the exact same way, and he couldn’t stop it.

Collier cupped Norman’s head in his hand. He could almost span his entire head like that with just one hand, pressing his thumb into the meat of Norman’s cheek. “You can do it,” he said, almost tenderly, and then boxed him on the ear, like Norman’s dad used to do when Norman was being a little shit. “I know you can.”

“Just kill me,” Norman spluttered, reciting his own line, and Christ Almighty, it was embarrassing. The infantry all thought it was pretty fucking entertaining, judging from the grins he saw on their faces. “Please.”

There was probably a universe where Collier killed him. It wasn’t this one. Collier pinned him down and put the gun into his hand, wrapping his own hand around Norman’s so he wouldn’t drop it. Norman had been in fights before, schoolyard scraps. Never one like this. Collier was so much stronger than he was.

When he was a kid, Norman used to wonder why the mice would freeze when the kitchen cats trapped them in a corner. Now he understood; there’s something inevitable about it, knowing that that death was coming. Maybe the only thing to do was relax into it, to know your killer. Collier was holding him like he might hold a girl, plastered against his back with his arm around him, while Noman tried to squirm away.

“It’s all right,” Collier said, aiming the gun. Maybe it was. Maybe they next time they did this, Norman wouldn’t cry.

It took a surprising amount of pressure on the trigger to fire the gun; he remembered that from last time. The back of the Kraut’s head disappeared in a red mist.

Collier pushed him onto the ground in disgust, then kicked him in the kidneys. “Do your fucking job!” he yelled, somewhere above where Norman was writhing in pain.

Norman could do this a hundred times, and he still wasn’t going to shoot a prisoner of war in the back. Collier was fucking crazy. He forgot that while he was trying to get Collier to like him; Collier was a fucking crazy, mean bastard.

Norman laid in the dirt until Bible came to pull him up, some minutes later. “Come on, Norman,” he said kindly, escorting him back to the Fury. The others were huddled around a small fire beside it. Gordo and Coon-ass looked up at him a little anxiously, sorry for him after that performance.

Bible pressed a cup of coffee in Norman’s hands. The chipped enamel cup was almost too hot to hold. “My conscience is clean,” Norman said, more shakily than he intended.

He’d thought that maybe this was a mistake he could fix, the second time around. He’d killed hundreds of Nazis, for Christ’s sake. He shouldn’t be shaking because he’d killed one man for the second time.

The tank crew all exchanged looks. “Don’t worry about it,” Gordo said. “Don’s crazier than a shithouse rat, but he’s solid. He’ll get us through this.”

Norman knew they were trying to make him understand, how they fought this war, but he was too angry to absorb it. It was like he couldn’t get air into his lungs. He took a sip of the coffee and burned his tongue.

“You did good out there,” Bible said. “You spotted that 75 before anybody else did.”

“First time we got shot at in North Africa, Don shat himself,” Coon-ass told him with a grin.

A small kindness, but one he desperately needed. Norman thought they were all the biggest assholes in the world the first time he met them. He loved them now. He got it. He would have never talked to any of them outside the war, but here, he’d die for them.

He chanced a look over at Collier, who was smoking and turning his revolver over in his hands. He couldn’t imagine Collier being scared in combat; he couldn’t imagine Collier being scared of anything.

-

After they rescued Baker, they pushed on to the town. It looked like it could have been something out of a postcard except for the smoke from the shelling they’d dropped on it, to soften it up before they went in.

Norman was exhausted. He didn’t remember how he did this last time.

“There’s a gun in the tailor shop,” he said when they rolled into the town square, firing a short burst from the coaxial that went off the gun shield. The enemy’s first round also went wide, exploding into a wall.

“Anti-tank! Left! Fox love!” Collier yelled. “Coon-ass, throw some Willie Peter at them!”

The white phosphorus shell detonated in the guts of the shop, sending tailor’s dummies flying the window. Norman shot the gun crew as they staggered out the shop, skin burning from the phosphorus. He didn’t want to hear them screaming.

“Good shooting, kid, keep stacking them up,” Collier said.

“Should’ve let them burn,” Gordo grumbled.

Norman watched the bodies smolder through the periscope without replying. He wondered how many times he’d have to do this before he started thinking the same thing.

-

The fighting ended soon after that. Coon-ass and Gordo kicked him out of the tank so they could show it to their new lady friend, so Norman sat on the side and tried reading his copy of the new Hemmingway. He’d picked it up in London before they’d shipped out, figuring he could read on his downtime.

Today the words seemed to slide right off the page. Among the general destruction of the town, someone had found a piano and dragged it out into the square, and now there were a group of men singing around it while another smashed the keys with more verve than talent.

Like clockwork, Collier came to find him. “Wasn’t nothing, right?” he said, eyebrows scrunched up, cigarette bobbing on his lip. “You splashed out those Heinies real good.”

“Sure, Sergeant,” Norman said stiffly. He didn’t want to have this conversation again.

Collier looked at him for a moment, sucking his teeth, and then said, “I want to show you something.”

Collier wanted to show him the Nazi party headquarters again. Now that he’d processed the shock of the scene, Norman was surprised there weren’t any soldiers looting the place. They’d clean the place out in minutes; there was more gold in the room than he’d seen in his life, more than he’d expect to see in a little town like this.

Norman picked up a bottle of champagne that was floating in a melted ice bowl and studied the label. It was from 1921 and looked expensive; the lettering was all in gilt. He lifted it to his mouth and took a gulp. It was flat, but still sweet, with a bit of a bitter aftertaste. He’d never had champagne before, but he liked it. He took another swig.

Collier turned from where he’d been studying a dead woman with a diamond bracelet on her wrist. “Norman, don’t,” he began, eyes going wide.

Norman remembered the first time he’d gone into the house. Collier had said they’d poisoned themselves. Norman’s lips were starting to go numb.

Whatever poison they used, it was effective, but Norman figured getting killed by the high-explosive shells was better. It was a lot faster, anyways.

**April 8 th, 1945**

Norman woke up in a shitty mood.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said when Gordo bitched about the lack of cigarettes in his duffel. “Let’s just go kill some fuckin’ Nazis already.”

Being annoyed carried him through the first fight. He fired a shot at the Hitler Youth kid, too wide; the kid managed to blow off Lt. Parker’s head without damaging the Matador, and then died when Coon-ass stitched him up with the .50cal.

Matador's crew fished Lt. Parker’s decapitated body out of the command turret and put him on the front of the tank; one of the battle-hardened sergeants replaced him at the top, holding his blood-splashed binoculars gingerly.

“Next time, just fucking shoot,” Collier said, grabbing Norman by the blouse and forcing his head toward the tank. “If that kid aimed a foot lower, they’d all be dead. You’re lucky you only got our goddamn company commander killed.”

He shoved Norman’s head against the hatch, just once. “Learn how to fucking aim.”

“Sorry, Sergeant,” Norman said glumly.

He thought that would be the end of it. When they routed the Nazis in the sugar beet field, he remembered to keep shooting, and he dusted the corpses before Gordo could ask. Collier didn’t give him his little speech about how Red was the best gunner in the ninth army. For a moment Norman relaxed, safe in the bosom of the Fury. He wasn’t shaking this time. Outside, he heard some of the men yelling about a coat.

A pause, and then there was a rap on his tank hatch. “Norman! Get out here.”

-

“Let’s work on your aim,” Collier said, offering him the gun. Norman stared at the photograph of a girl, blurry beneath the clear plastic grips, and didn’t move.

It happened again. Norman figured maybe next time he’d shoot Collier, just to see what happened. If the day didn’t reset, he’d be in a lot of trouble, but it might be worth it.

-

“Do what I tell you,” Collier said when they stepped outside the Nazi party headquarters, lighting up another cigarette. “You do that, you’ll make it through this thing.”

Norman hadn’t even managed to make it through the day again so far, but he stayed tight-lipped. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with this repeating day. It didn’t seem like it was going to stop. He was pretty sure he was going crazy, or would be crazy soon.

Collier spotted Irma standing in the window, looking out at the town from behind a lace curtain. “Come on,” he said to Norman, striding across the square.

Irma had her hands up the moment Collier broke down the door, but Collier pushed past her to find Emma under the bed. Norman could’t understand what Don was saying to them. He recognized what it was when she tried to touch Collier in supplication, her face resolute – hurt me, not her.

Norman almost lost his shit the first time, when Collier told him to lock the door of the apartment. He’d been certain that Collier was going to rape and kill the women and that he was going to make Norman do it too, the same way he’d made him shoot the Kraut soldier in the back of the head.

Collier batted Irma away, and she went into the kitchen after a short exchange. Don stared at Emma from where she was trembling on the couch, and then called her over and showed her the eggs. Norman wondered if the whole thing, scaring the shit out of Irma and Emma, was because Collier was too fucking lazy to boil his own water. He tried to imagine it reversed, if Germans invaded his house in Pittsburg and scared his aunt and sisters like this; he could, all too well.

He wondered if anything would change this time. He played around with the piano while Don stripped out of his shirt. The women were talking in the kitchen; they relaxed a little after getting the cigarettes and coffee. Like last time, Emma came to sing with him. He couldn’t figure out why, unless it was a survival instinct, like maybe they wouldn’t kill her if they liked her enough.

“If you don’t take her into that bedroom, I will,” Collier said.

Last time, Norm rambled at Emma about palm reading, she’d kissed him, and he’d panicked. He could almost taste how scared she was. After all that he ended up hugging her for a few solid minutes while she clung to him and told him something long and rambling in German that he wished he understood.

“Okay, Sarge,” Norman said, but he couldn’t make himself get off the piano bench for a few long seconds.

Collier eyed him for a moment, then huffed. Maybe he thought that Norman was conceding. Maybe he was. “She’s too young for me,” he said, stubbing out his cigarette in a dish. He said something to Emma in German and she gave Norman a scandalized look before going back to the kitchen.

“What did you say to her?” Norman said.

“Said you got your dick shot off. I figure that’s the only explanation for why you won’t take her for a spin.”

Norman’s ears started to burn, and he went back to playing the piano, pressing the keys a little too hard.

The rest happened like it did before. The other men came in and harassed the women. Gordo teared up when he told his story about the dead horses. Norm got a shot of schnapps poured on his head and figured out why he’d smelled peaches all night while they were fighting in the Fury.

When the messenger found them, and they got up to leave, Norman paused, holding Emma for a moment. She was panicking. She’d been safe with Norman and Collier, at least, but now there was just her and Irma alone in a town full of bored soldiers.

“You missed your chance, kid,” Collier said. “Let’s go.”

“Could you tell them to get out of the house?” Norman asked.

Collier’s brows wrinkled, and he stopped in the doorway. “Now why would I do that?”

“I have a bad feeling,” Norman said. “I think there’s going to be an airstrike.”

Collier studied him for a long moment. “Kid, you take them out of this place, they’re going to be in trouble anyways. Let’s go.”

“They need to leave,” Norman insisted.

“Let’s go,” Collier said, wrapping a hand around his arm and dragging him out the door.

The artillery came some time after Collier went to meet the captain. Norman made an insincere attempt to get under cover, but Coon-ass forced him under the Fury when he saw him standing in the open.

Once the bombing stopped, they all came out, a little dazed. They were all alive, but not much else was. The piano in the square was blown to pieces, bodies were strewn around the square, and Irma’s apartment was a pile of rubble.

When he came out of the meeting, Collier looked at Norman with an expression he’d never seen from the man before. There was something approaching fear in his eyes. “Now how did you know that would happen,” he said softly.

Norman shrugged. “I get visions,” he said, a cover story he had been working on for a few days now. “I have since I was a kid.”

Collier didn’t say anything, just watched him with wary eyes. Behind him Norman could see blonde hair high up in the pile of rubble, barely visible between the bricks.

-

Even if Norman lived the day a thousand times, he’d never be able to do anything about the Tiger. It all happened so quickly. He couldn’t even warn them because they couldn’t see the tank until it came up over the ridge. It had no problem seeing them, though; it plugged the Lucy Sue and Old Phyliss in quick succession.

Even knowing there was nothing he could do, he was still terrified. Gordo sent the Sherman in a wheeling circle, lining up on the Tiger, and Bible pumped two, three shells into the thinner armor at the back. The shells punched through. Norman cut down the commander in the burning tank in a fit of vengeance.

It was still such a fucking, visceral relief. He slumped back in his seat. “Good driving, Gordo,” he said breathlessly. Everyone was quiet and shaky.

In the turret he could hear Wardaddy testing the radio, but there was nobody on the other side. They were all alone.

-

“Gordo, watch out for mines,” Norman said when they crested the hill and the farmhouse appeared in the bottom of the valley, deceptively idyllic. “Maybe you should drive in the middle of the road.”

“First of all, kid,” Gordo said, “Don’t tell me how to fucking drive unless your name was Wardaddy, which it isn’t. Second, the Germans use this road all the time. They’re not going to—”

They rolled over the mine and Norman nearly jumped out of his skin. Everyone was yelling for a moment, panicked, until Collier said, almost bored, “Settle down, it’s a mine.”

The Fury was fucked again, the tread laying flat on the ground and the big gears busted. Collier sent him and Coon-ass to check out the abandoned aid station, stinking of blood and death. Norman didn’t like it any better the second time around.

Coon-ass lit up a smoke when they were inside. “Norm, I’m sorry,” he said, unprompted. “I think you’re a good man. ‘Swhat I think. I think we ain’t, but I think you are. I wanted to tell you that.”

“It’s okay,” Norman said. He meant it.

“There’s something about you. Bible said he was the hand of God today, but,” Coon-ass clicked his tongue and lapsed into silence, letting his cigarette smolder. “I think you are.”

Norman was practically crawling out of his skin; he wanted to be anywhere but in the abandoned aid station, filled with the soft droning of flies and the silence of the dead men.

“I’m not,” Norman said. “I’m nobody.”

Coon-ass looked up at him; his hard face was open and almost vulnerable. “You get visions, don’t you? What do you see? Do we make it to the end of the war?”

Norman studied him for a long moment. “No,” he said. “There’s an SS troop coming. Everybody dies but me. I don’t know why.”

Coon-ass nodded once, contemplating the abandoned building; it looked like that was about the answer he expected. “So what do you do, then?”

“Me?” Norman said, shifting. “I don’t know. I haven’t made it that far yet.”

“Well,” Coon-ass said, getting up and clapping him on the shoulder, “Godspeed, I guess.”

-

Knowing what was coming didn’t help one bit when it did happen.

Norman prayed wildly that this time, it might work, that this might be the time they all survived, but then he went out after Bible and –

**April 8 th, 1945**

He woke up with start. “You’re getting reassigned. Report to Sergeant Collier of the 66th Armored,” the Master Sergeant said.

Norman was disoriented, still reeling. He blinked at the Master Sergeant.

“You deaf, solider?" the Master Sergeant said in his drawl.

“No, Master Sergeant,” Norman echoed, piecing it together; he was back again. He must have gotten shot, maybe in the head. It had been quick.

Norman turned to Bob, the guy next to him. Bob was one of his buddies from the transport across the Atlantic, the only guy in the platoon shorter than Norman, although he swore they were the same height. “Hey, give me your smokes.”

“My smokes?” Bob said, hand trailing up to his chest pocket.

“Yeah. I’m going to die out there. So give me your smokes.”

Bob’s mouth worked, and then he handed over his Lucky Strikes.

When Gordo went for his bag, Norman tossed him the pack. “These are for you,” he said. “I don’t smoke.”

“This kid,” Gordo said to Coon-ass, holding the pack to his heart. “I like this kid.”

It was almost starting to be a routine. Norman aimed wide on the Hitler Youth kid, but the kid kept his composure enough to hit the Matador. It went up in flames; Norman got chewed out; in the sugar beet field, Norman still couldn’t kill the Kraut; in the town, Don showed him the Nazi party house.

When they stepped back out in the square, Don lit up a cigarette, and Norm got an idea.

“Shouldn’t we go back, make sure there’s no Nazis alive in there?” he asked.

Don glanced down at him from where he’d been scanning the square. “You worried, son? Nobody’s alive in there.”

“Still,” Norman said, unsure of what to do now. He could see Irma lower the curtain in her apartment. “Maybe I should check. Are we going to billet here tonight?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Don said with a sigh, looking up and then back down at him, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Come on, then, let’s go.”

They went past the front parlor, leaving the bodies where they were, and went through the corridors with their guns up. The floors were all oak, stained dark, worn down in a groove through years of use. Dusty oil portraits hung on the red and gold walls. The effect was suffocating.

True to Don’s word, there was nobody else there when they busted down the door to the kitchen. A half-chopped onion left out on the counter was attracting flies, but the battered kitchen table was empty. Norman wondered where the kitchen staff went.

Their entrance stirred up some dust motes, lit in the sunlight through the windows to the courtyard. Don pushed the barrel of his gun through some cupboards before losing interest and sitting down on the kitchen bench.

“You know how to work a Kraut stove? I need some hot water to shave,” Don said, scratching his jaw.

Norman ventured over to the stove, slinging his gun behind his back. “I think you light it with a match.”

The stove still had some propane left, which was a surprise to Norman. He almost singed his eyebrows off lighting it. Then he had to figure out how to get water out of the big kitchen sink to fill a pot. When that was done, he turned back to Don.

Don was watching him, that evaluating expression on his face again. Something hot and heavy settled in Norman’s stomach. He didn’t know what it meant; if he was angry at Don or what.

“Sit down,” Don said, pulling his lighter out of Norm’s hand. “Let me show you something.”

It was the fucking eggs. “I was saving these for a special occasion,” he said. “What do you say we have ourselves a little fry-up?”

“I’m not much of a cook,” Norman said, a little annoyed he was being cast in Irma's role this time around.

“S’allright. You make an honest attempt of it. I’d rather eat them before those degenerates come sniffing around, crying for their Daddy.” Don propped his boots out in front of him and leaned back into the kitchen table, lacing his hands over his stomach.

Norm found a pan in one of the cupboards and got a fire going under it. There was a tin of what smelled like cooking grease beside the stove, so he put some in the pan, then chopped up the rest of the onion and threw it in with the eggs. Back at basic he’d had powdered eggs every day for breakfast, but he hadn’t eaten the real kind since Pittsburg. His stomach growled as he watched the egg whites bubble.

“How’s that book you’re reading?” Don asked, breaking the silence.

“Hemmingway? It’s all right. He censored all the swearing in it.” Norm prodded the egg with a fork. The onions were beginning to brown up and go translucent, and he figured that was about the best he could do. “You like yours sunny-side up?”

“I like it any way I could get it,” Don said, so Norm tossed the eggs and onion on a plate with a bit of salt and pepper and handed it over to him with a fork. “You like reading?”

Norm cracked another two eggs into the pan. “I guess so. The guy in the book just met a girl and he’s falling in love. Maybe it’ll pick up.”

“This ain’t half bad,” Don said, indicating his plate. “Nice work.”

It was a little funny, that killing Nazis rated the same praise as frying an egg. “Thanks,” Norm said anyways.

“You got a sweetheart back home?”

Norm thought of Emma, of the girls he’d kissed back at home; he’d been writing to Diana McCandless but he wasn’t sure if that meant they were seeing each other. “I guess so. Is that your lady on your pistol?”

“Oh, the grips? That’s me and every man in the United States Army’s best girl, Rita Hayworth.” Don cracked a grin. “You never seen a Rita Hayworth pinup before?”

Norm felt himself going red and kept his down, putting the two eggs on a plate.

“I’ll get you one, for your seat, so you got something nice to look at,” Don promised. “We’ll make a man out of you yet. Sit down, eat.”

Norm did, his neck burning, and hunched over his plate of eggs. The men had kept up a near constant stream of blue talk on the way in the town, but that was different from sitting alone with Don, talking about women.

“Do you have a girl back home?” Norman asked, trying to match the tone.

Don was quiet for a while, getting up to turn off the stove. “I had one,” he said while he messed around with the knobs. “She took off, though. Don’t blame her. Anyways, the Fury’s about as much woman as I could handle these days.”

Norman couldn’t help but grin at that, and Don noticed. It sparked something bright in his eyes. He sat back down on the table bench. “Eat up, kid.”

For a while they ate in companionable silence. Don watched the front door and Norm kept an eye on what he figured was the door to the pantry. It felt safe in there, enclosed in the plain white plaster walls of the kitchen, like there wasn’t a whole war going on outside.

“So,” Don said, pushing his plate away and exhaling. “You think you’ll marry that girl of yours?”

“I dunno,” Norm said. The thought of having a day beyond this one was deeply painful, and he viciously shoved the hope down.

Don got up to get the water. “Fuck, I stink,” he said with a sigh. “Mind watching the door while I shave?”

“Sure,” Norm said, half-standing with his M3.

“Sit down, kid,” Don said, bringing the pot over to the table with a kitchen rag wrapped around each handle. “You make me nervous.”

That made two of them. Norm watched for a second too long as Don stripped out of his shirt, and then fixed his gaze on the door. He could hear Don lathering up the shaving powder behind him.

“I guess what I’m asking, kid,” he began, undercut by the scrape of a razor and the quiet slosh of the water, “is if you’re a virgin. Because I won’t stand for having a virgin in the Fury.”

Norman stared resolutely at the door, ears burning. “Why would that matter?”

“It’s bad luck,” Don said. “And I do not intend to have bad luck in my tank.”

“Not much we could do about it now.”

“There’s a lot of women in this town,” Don said. “And you’ve got a chocolate bar. Hell, you might not even need the chocolate bar.”

Norm stayed quiet. If he strained, he could hear the thud of artillery in the distance. He hadn’t checked if the Nazi house got schwacked, last time he was here; he wondered when the artillery was going to come in. He was curious about where this was going, in a funny way; it felt like he was close to the edge of something forbidden.

“I’m surprised by the women of Pittsburg, that you managed to keep it this long,” Don added.

Norman wasn’t sure if his face could get any hotter. He jittered his leg a little, then darted a glance back at Don, still half-lathered up with shaving powder and watching him. “This making you uncomfortable, kid?” he asked.

“No,” Norm lied. “It’s fine.”

Don held up the razor blade. “You mind helping me out here? I’m a poor hand for shaving without a mirror.”

Norm got up and went over to him. He’s never shaved someone else before. Don shifted so he was sitting splay-legged on the bench facing Norm and handed him the razor.

Norm got a brief, visceral vision of cutting Don’s throat. The man looked so relaxed, sitting there with his head back and elbows braced against the kitchen table, still damp from his impromptu bath. His body looked like something out of the Greek Sculpture wing in the Chicago History Museum; no wonder he’d been able to pin Norm with such little effort.

Don opened his eyes to meet Norm’s. After a beat, he said, “You know how to shave, kid?”

“I know how to shave,” Norm said, a little too defensively. He leaned over Don, placing the blade gently against his cheekbone. Careful not to press too hard on the skin as he dragged it down. Don was radiating heat; Norm’s fingers were cold by comparison.

Norm wiped the blade off, both sides, on the kitchen rag. He shuffled closer, bracketed by Don’s legs. He had to put his fingers on Don’s chin to angle his face up; Don let him, eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks. The next line was perilously close to Don’s mouth. Norm was very careful to not let his hands tremble.

It was strange, that was all; strange to be touching Don like this. That feeling of being on the edge of something forbidden was stronger than ever. Norman never really noticed the way a man’s mouth looked before.

He moved on to Don’s neck, where the skin was easy to nick. Norm was a little surprised Don was letting him do this. He shifted on his feet, bumping into the heavy weight of Don’s inner knee, and then shaved down the side of Don’s throat. The big vein in Don’s neck pulsed steadily.

In basic, during bayonet training, their drill instructor had told them to go for the neck, gut and groin, places where the enemy would bleed out quick. They’d all dutifully taken turns re-enacting cutting their partner’s throats with wooden bayonets.

Norm tilted Don’s head back just a little bit more and scraped down the column of his throat, once, twice, and then again. He didn’t nick him once.

“All done,” Norm said, and his voice didn’t waver.

Don opened his eyes. Neither of them moved for a moment. There was still a bit of shaving powder on Don’s jaw; Norm had missed a spot.

“Thanks,” Don said. His voice was gravelly. “Mind handing me the towel?”

Norm leaned over him to get it. Don patted his face down, still watching Norm, who was pinned in place, like a dragonfly in a display case.

“Tell you what, kid,” Don said. He looked about ten years younger without all the dirt and grease on his face. “I’ll give you a hand here. Just so you don’t go bringing bad luck to the Fury.”

Norm’s eyebrows pulled together for a second. “Give me a hand?” he repeated.

“Yeah, some of my buddies, we used to do this back in tank school,” Don said, and he reached for Norm’s belt, casually, still talking. “Helps get the battle jitters out of your system.”

Norm was dumbstruck, watching Don’s hands unbutton his pants and unlace his fly, deft as anything. He was watching it and Don was watching and Norman was just standing there between Don’s legs, now with his dick out of his pants and Don’s knees pressing against the outsides of his legs.

Out of everything that almost seemed like the most unbelievable thing, out of the whole goddamn war, from the horror of battle to the fact Norman was reliving the same day over and over again; Don taking his dick in hand and beginning to jerk him off.

“That’s it,” Don said, almost encouraging. “Maybe this’ll settle you the fuck down. When we get to Berlin, I’ll buy you a whore. Hell, I’ll get you two whores if we live through this.”

Norm’s hips stuttered forwards, without him meaning to. He was getting hard. There was a dim feeling that he should try to get away, maybe throw a punch at Don for assuming Norman was a poof. Norman wasn’t a poof, but it was the best damn thing he’d ever felt. He was stuck on that. It felt really fucking good.

He couldn’t believe what Don was doing. He couldn’t believe it felt good. Although he may have not liked it, he knew he wasn’t going to try to escape. He both wanted it to be over and never wanted it to end, getting jerked off by his sergeant in a kitchen in a house full of dead Nazis.

“There you go,” Don said as Norm stiffened up fully. “Good boy.”

Norman bit his lip hard. “Sarge, I’m—”

“Call me Don,” Don said.

“Don,” Norman said faintly.

Don looked up at him. He had that fucking look on his face, the evaluating one, like he was trying to see right inside Norm’s head. “Don’t you worry, kid,” he said, still moving his hand methodically. “I’ll take care of you. Gotta keep you sharp out there, right?”

He rubbed his thumb over the head of Norm’s dick, and Norm came like it was punched out of him. He didn’t even realize he was that close. It felt like his spine melted and for a few seconds his vision was completely gone.

When he came back to himself, he was still standing, although he was reeling a bit, and Don was wiping off his hand fastidiously with the warm towel and making signs of getting ready to go. “Clean yourself up,” he said, tossing the rag to Norm, who barely managed to catch it. “We’ve got to get back to the men.”

Norm was completely off-balance, like his brain was spinning out of gear. “Don’t you,” he began, and then tried again, clutching the dishrag like an idiot. “I mean, should I… do you want me to return the favor?”

Don paused in the middle of packing up his shaving equipment. “Do you want to?” he said, looking up.

“Well, I,” Norman said, because he didn’t want to, exactly, but – “It seems fair,” he finished lamely.

Don considered him for a long moment. Then he sat back down, settling in and spreading his legs wide. “All right, kid,” he said. “Go for it.”

Norman hesitated for a moment, half-crouching since Don was still sitting down and Norman was still standing. Actually undoing Don’s belt and unlacing his pants seemed next to impossible. They could fortify the beaches of Normandy with the fabric of his trousers.

Don sighed. “Go get the grease,” he said, and started undoing his own belt. “Then get on your knees.”

It was easy to do what Don told him to do. Norman scrambled for the tin of grease, then dropped to his knees on the flagstones, too hard. Don looked down at him, softer now. He took some of the grease and smeared it on Norman’s hand before putting the tin on the bench.

“All right,” he said in an instructive tone, the same he’d used to teach Norman how to organize his ammunition. “You do this to yourself ever?”

“Sometimes,” Norman said.

“Well, it’s just like that, but from the other way around,” Don said, and pulled himself out of his pants casually. He was already half-hard. He put Norman’s hand on him and wrapped it around, his own hand on top. His fingers almost met on over Norman’s. “That’s it. Nice and easy.”

The situation was too strange. Norman’s head was spinning. It was a good thing Don was there, holding him in place, talking him through it.

“You’re doing good, kid,” Don said. “Talk to me. You boys never did this in basic?”

Norman shook his head, wetting his lips. His lip was swollen from where he’d bit it. Don was still moving his hand for him, steady, slick from the grease. “I didn’t. I dunno if the others did.”

“First time I did it was in basic,” Don said. His voice sounded like he’d just smoked a couple cigarettes. “One of the other privates, he showed me how. He took me to a lady near Fort Dix, too. You slip her an extra few bucks and she’d suck your dick for you.”

Norman breathed out harshly. He was too warm, and it felt like a gut-punch, the dirty stuff Don was saying to him. He felt like he could get hard again in a minute. Don was watching him, studying his face, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to meet his eyes.

“Hey, kid, look at me,” Don said.

Norman did, and got caught in the intensity of his stare. Norman could barely form a thought. In that moment he thought he’d let Don do anything to him, any sort of filthy thing, and he’d like it, just because it was Don doing it.

Don didn’t blink, but he reached out and put his hand against the side of Norman’s face, pressing his thumb hard against Norman’s bottom lip. Norman’s eyes were watering, still fixed on Don’s.

Don said, “Say my name.”

“Don,” Norman whispered.

Don pushed his thumb all the way into Norman’s mouth, onto his tongue. Norman didn’t know what to do. Don tasted like nothing, clean from the hot water. Their hands on his dick were going fast now. He squeezed Norman’s fingers around him, pushing hard through the ring of his hand, and didn’t look away from Norman, just grunted softly. It was only when Norman felt something warm spilling down the back of his hand that he realized it was over.

“Okay,” Don said briskly, releasing Norman and standing up, sidling out the way. “Let’s get packed up here. Get moving.”

Norman got to his feet unsteadily. He could still feel the whorls of Don’s thumbprint on his tongue. He watched as Don wiped himself off and then neatly did up his pants, tucking his shirt and buckling his belt. After a moment, Don picked up the cloth, dunked it in the water, and then used it to wipe off Norman’s hand.

“Don’t worry about it, son,” he said. “It’s nothing. Just blowing off some steam. Better than getting the clap from the town whore like Gordo and Coon-ass, anyways.”

Norman snorted at that, some sense of normalcy re-establishing itself. Don cuffed him on the head, friendly this time. “Let’s go.”

Bible eyed them both suspiciously when they walked up to the Fury. Judging from the thumping inside, Coon-ass was getting familiar with the local population. Gordo looked a little worse for wear, sitting on a box by the fire and holding a half-empty bottle of wine.

“Where were you?” Bible said to Don.

“Securing our billet for the night. Did you boys miss Daddy?” Don was in a good mood now.

“Captain Waggoner’s looking for you,” Bible said.

Don’s smile dropped. “Shit,” he said, and pulled out his smokes, tapping one out. “Get them out of tank before I come back, all right?”

Bible gave Norman an unfriendly look as Don stomped off. “What were you two doing?”

Norman sat down and checked his bootlaces. “Don wanted to show me the Nazi Party Headquarters. They all committed suicide.”

“Don’t worry, Bible, you’re still Daddy’s favorite. I'm sure he's got some dead Nazis for somewhere,” Gordo said, taking a drag off his cigarette, one of the Lucky Strikes Norman got for him.

Norman avoided Bible’s eyes and set about tying off one of his broken laces. Gordo banged on the side of the tank. “Five minutes, Coon-ass!”

-

Norman was a coward. He turned his head away from Emma and Irma’s apartment when the Fury rolled out.

-

Norman couldn’t even pinpoint exactly when the Tiger attacked them; he’d almost drifted asleep when it took out the Lucy Sue. He was just a passenger, watching the whole battle from his periscope. It was like waiting for a thunderstorm to roll over.

They killed the Tiger. Norm killed the commander. Afterwards, the only sound was the ringing in his ears.

Bible was saying something. “I’m the instrument, not the hand. God didn’t call us today. Lord’s protection, we got it.”

Norman couldn’t help but strain to hear him. So far he’d avoided thinking about why he kept coming back, but it had to be for some purpose. Otherwise he wouldn’t be repeating. He could’ve woken up in the field hospital and gone on living his days.

Coon-ass had said he was the hand of God. There had to be a reason he was there.

-

“Hey, Don,” Norman said, clambering up to sit beside him on the floor of the commander’s turret.

They were the last ones left. The maelstrom raged on outside, bullets ricocheting off Fury’s bow. “How do you say, you need to evacuate, there’s an airstrike coming, in German?”

Don blinked at him sluggishly. “That’s what you’re worried about now?”

“It’s important.”

“ _Sie m_ _ü_ _ssen evakuieren. Es kommt ein Luftangriff,”_ Don said.

“Thank you,” Norman said, and then reached out and took the revolver from Don’s hand; Don only resisted for a faint second. The front of his jacket was red with blood. “I think I know why I keep repeating today. I have to figure out how to save us. Us and Emma and Irma.”

Don’s eyes were going hazy. Above them, the hatch creaked open. Two potato mashers dropped down at their feet.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Norman said. He leaned forward and kissed Don’s slack mouth, because he could, because it was over for them. Don’s eyelashes fluttered; he tasted like blood.

Norman didn’t give himself time to think about what he was doing before he put the revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger.


	3. Chapter 3

**April 8 th, 1945**

Norman was reinvigorated when he woke up in the back of the truck; he knew how to get to the crossroad battle, and he thought he knew what he needed to do. He had to keep them all alive.

When he shot at the Hitler youth kid, he accidentally got him in the chest. The Matador survived. At the camp, Norman trotted beside Collier’s elbow as Collier tried to find a latrine.

“We need to flank through the field,” Norman said. “We’ll die if we go on the road.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“For the next mission. They’re sending us to rescue Baker company. Lt. Parker doesn’t flank through the field. We’ll get smoked out there if we take the road like he’s got planned.”

Collier put one big hand on Norman’s chest, just below his throat, and shoved him. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but I don’t much appreciate the strategic advice of a Private who’s spent two hours in a tank,” he said. “Go help Gordo find some extra gas.”

Norman had been trying really hard not to think about what happened in the Nazi party headquarters. After all, it was just a thing men did sometimes. He was the one making it a big deal by thinking about it. It wasn’t this Collier that did it, anyways. He wasn’t some kind of queer. Norman wasn’t either. It had been a farewell kiss that Norman had given him.

He tried to find some extra gas while Collier and the other sergeants went to confer with Lt. Parker about the mission. Collier returned from the meeting tight-lipped.

“Let’s go,” he said, and then clamped his hand down hard on Norman’s shoulder. “Come with me.”

Norman was a little scared of Collier then, the way he usually wasn’t anymore. “Sarge?” he said.

Collier took him around the corner of one of the brick buildings, still holding his shoulder in a grip tight enough to bruise, and then turned on him. “How the fuck did you know about the mission?” he hissed.

Norman blinked up at him. “I don’t—”

“You saw that kid, too, when nobody else did. Why?”

“I get visions,” Norman said lamely.

“Here’s what I think,” Collier said, and then rattled something off in German, staring at Norman intently.

Norman looked up at him in confusion.

“So you’re not a German,” Collier said. “But you come out of nowhere, knowing stuff that others don’t, and I get to thinking. I think maybe you’re a spy.”

“I’m not,” Norman said.

“Yeah, well, I ain’t taking the chance. You’re staying here.”

Norman spent the rest of the day typing up letters for men who’d been killed in the past day, in a state of slight shock. It was the first time he’d actually used his training in the field.

“Nice work,” his new sergeant praised as Norman handed him the latest dispatch informing Mabel Johnston of Winsconsin that she wasn’t going to see her son again. “You’re a fast typist.”

“Thank you,” Norman said. He went to bed in the barracks that night and listened to the rattle of the big guns down in the field. The drone of an aircraft engine went overhead, lighter than the bombers; maybe a fighter plane like the one he’d seen that morning. He wondered how the Fury was making out, trapped in the crossroad. He wondered who’d replaced him in there.

“ _Sie m_ _ü_ _ssen evakuieren. Es kommt ein Luftangriff,”_ he whispered to himself, to practice.

**April 8 th, 1945**

Norman died, inexplicably, in the sugar beet field; one of the German soldiers was playing dead and zipped him when Norman got out of the tank. Norman bled out staring at the cloudy sky while Bible recited a prayer over him. He wanted to tell him not to bother; Norman wasn’t going anywhere fast.

**April 8 th, 1945**

For the first time, the Tiger managed to get them in the field.

**April 8 th, 1945**

He made it to the crossroad again, but they all died.

**April 8 th, 1945**

“You’re getting reassigned. Report to Sgt. Collier. 1st platoon, 66th Armored,” the Master Sergeant said.

“Bob, give me your smokes,” Norman said, taking off his hat and scrubbing his hand through his hair with a sigh. Last time they’d been nailed by a Panzerfaust about ten minutes in and Norm had died screaming; he could still feel the phantom pain of his skin burning.

Bob didn’t even argue with him this time around, which might’ve been a bad sign. Norman heaved himself off the truck and headed over to the Fury.

-

“Might as well get a little tight. Won’t be around for the hangover,” Collier said, and Norman heard the clink of the brandy bottle.

“What we’re doing here is a righteous act, gentlemen,” Bible said, and then quoted Isaiah; “‘Here am I. Send me.’ ”

If Norman ever got out of this, he was never drinking brandy again. “‘The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we were healed’,” he murmured to himself, lifting the bottle to his lips.

It was useless trying to track what was happening in the battle. There were too many variables. They were all going to die, and they did.

**April 8 th, 1945**

“You’re reassigned. Report to Sgt. Collier. 1st platoon, 66th Armoured,” the Master Sergeant said.

“Fuck you,” Norman said, putting his head into his hands.

“Excuse me?” the Master Sergeant said.

"What are you, fucking deaf?" Norman snapped. He looked over at the shocked faces of the men in his platoon. “Fuck all of you too. You yellow-bellied, chicken-livered sons of bitches. You fucking whore’s bastards. Suck my cock.”

He spent that day in military prison. It wasn’t the worst. Norman stared at the cement walls and tried to pray; all he could think of was the verse Bible quoted to them. _Send me. Send me. Send me._

**April 8 th, 1945**

He woke up on the back of the truck. It was almost a relief. He was worried that he was going to wake up in jail and have to write a very apologetic letter to his mother explaining he’d disgraced the family name on only his third day of war for no apparent reason.

He skipped finding Collier and searched for the armory; he was hoping he could get some claymores to mine the ditches so that when the Fury opened fire, the Germans wouldn’t be able to hide. It was a small thing, but maybe it would help.

The quartermaster wouldn’t give him shit, not even more ammunition. “Tell that cocksucker Wardaddy that when he pays me the fifty bucks he owes me, then he can get claymores, but not a second sooner.”

“We’re going into war,” Norman said, almost pleading.

The quartermaster didn’t even blink. “And I’m going into debt for that rat bastard.”

Norman stared at him for a moment, but there was no change in expression.

“Fuck this,” Norman said, and put the muzzle of his brand new M3 in his mouth.

Sometimes he wondered if the loops continued after he left them, if he was just dropping in on other people’s stories. He hoped this was one the fucking quartermaster had to live with as he pulled the trigger.

**April 8 th, 1945**

He woke up on the back of the truck with the taste of grease in his mouth.

This time he tried to run away. He made it halfway down the road before a soldier, alerted by the shouts behind him, tackled Norman to the ground and sat on him. They dragged him to Collier covered in mud and threw him on the ground.

“Good luck,” the one solider said, kicking Norman in the back as they left.

Collier raised his eyebrows. “Who the fuck are you?”

Norman stayed curled up in the mud. He didn’t want to deal with Collier. “I’m supposed to be your new bow gunner.”

“No,” Collier said. “Who the fuck told you that?”

“Master Sergeant,” Norman said. “I’m a clerk typist with the 5th army. I’ve never even seen a tank. I don’t drink. You should probably get someone else.”

“Seems like there ain’t nobody else,” Collier said. “Get up. You try to run away?”

Norman got to his feet slowly and nodded. He tried to brush the mud off but it was no use; he just smeared the mud on his hands against the mud on his blouse.

Collier grabbed him by the front of his shirt, almost nose to nose. “You try that in my tank and I’ll cut your throat. I aim to survive this war. Understand?”

“Yes sir,” Norman said, automatically.

Collier released him and pointed at the Fury. “Head on over there. Don’t try to get close to anybody.”

Norman was angry as he trudged over; it was easier to give up on saving the Fury when he didn’t actually have to see them.

-

Spending the day caked in mud didn’t improve things much. Norman sulked all the way through to the town invasion, shooting the Hilter Youth kid, shooting the Kraut when Collier told him to. It didn’t even bother him. He was loosing it, living this day over and over again.

He took Emma into the bedroom. Kissing her felt good. He’d forgotten how soft her lips were, and the way she smelled, like fresh soap and rosemary. He’d spent too much time in the belly of the tank with other grimy, hard men, enough that it was almost a concussive shock to be with a woman again. That one time with Collier that he didn’t think about came to his mind, and he felt something stir, deep within him.

Norman pulled away from Emma and looked into her eyes. “Emma,” he said haltingly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “ _Sie m_ _ü_ _ssen evakuieren. Es kommt ein Luftangriff.”_

He hoped he didn’t butcher the pronunciation too terribly. She stared at him, her eyes going wide.

She peppered him with a torrent of German he didn’t understand. He shrugged, helpless, and she got up, doing a short lap around the room, yanking at the end of her hair and muttering to herself. Norman sat, shedding dirt flakes onto the sheets, and felt bad about it for a moment before remembering there wouldn’t be a bed there in fifteen minutes.

The rest of the encounter rolled on like it was on wheels; the other men came in. Gordo told his story about the horses. The messenger called for Collier.

“ _Sie m_ _ü_ _ssen evakuieren. Es kommt ein Luftangriff,_ ” Norman said again to Emma when they were leaving, grabbing her hands, and added the only other German word he knew. “ _Evakuieren_. _Schnell, schnell, schnell._ ”

“What, are you reciting wedding vows? Let’s go,” Coon-ass said, dragging him away.

He didn’t know if she made it out, in the end. He couldn’t see her body in the rubble that time. He hoped it meant something.

-

Norman wondered if the problem was that he didn’t save the rest of the platoon from the Tiger attack. Having another Sherman or two would sure be nice at the crossroads. The thing was, he couldn’t figure out how to influence that battle at all. The most he ever did was shoot the commander. This time, he hesitated.

“Norman!” Gordo yelled, and Norman reluctantly stitched the commander up.

“Jesus,” Gordo said, slumping in his seat; he was shaking. Norman patted him on the shoulder. No matter how many times he saw Gordo in that battle, he was still impressed by him.

“This is Love-One-Six, over,” Collier said into the radio, but like always, there was nothing on the other side.

-

For whatever reason, watching the white phosphorus detonate in the farmhouse, Norman thought of the hundreds of B17s they saw that morning, headed south to Berlin. He chopped down a line of fleeing soldiers and imagined calling down an airstrike on them. It didn’t look like they had anti-aircraft guns, just the _panzerfaust_ rocket launchers; even a fighter plane could probably decimate their division.

If only the radio wasn’t broken.

There was always a different outcome to the battle, no matter what happened. Gordo took the grenade blast, Bible died getting the machine gun, and Collier got zipped while he was up on the turret. Norman heard him cry out, once, and then a single shot. Nothing after that. It was him and Coon-ass at the end this time.

Norman’s bow gun chewed through the last belt. They were both out of ammo. He sat back, eyes stinging from the smoke, and thought about the planes he’d heard when he was trying to sleep in the barracks. He thought about the radio.

There didn’t seem to be a way to win this fight. Even if he did it a thousand, a million times, he didn’t think he could ever rehearse it to perfection, enough to avoid the sheer chaos of battle. Even if he did, it wouldn’t do any good. There were just too many of them.

“Well, kid,” Coon-ass said, taking a long swig from the brandy, “it’s been nice knowing you.”

Norman felt bad; Coon-ass probably wanted to have a good last few minutes before they died, and Norman was pushing past him to get to the radio and stare at the controls.

He didn’t really understand what he was looking at. The radio took up most of the dash, with a complex array of controls and dials. There was a row of numbers with radio crystals in a line, and a skinny vertical dash with various meters beside it. On the far end were two receivers. Everything looked fine up front, nothing wrong there. The microphone was intact as well, including the wires.

“What are you doing?” Coon-ass said, lighting up a cigarette.

“I’m looking at the radio,” Norman said. He heard footsteps on the outside of the tank and figured it was the Germans that usually dropped the grenades in. He reached up and locked the hatch without looking.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late to be worrying about the radio?” Coon-ass drawled.

If there was nothing wrong up front, then the radio was probably internally damaged, and Norman would need more time to look at it. He was done for this round. With a sigh, he dropped down to sit next to Coon-ass, who offered him the bottle.

“You’re a good man,” Norman told him, taking the bottle and wiping the blood off it. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Here’s hoping not, kid,” Coon-ass said with a tired laugh, slinging an arm around him. They waited together for the Germans to finish them off.

**April 8th, 1945**

Norman woke up with a gasp; he could still feel his skin burning from the anti-tank rocket.

“Do I scare you, Private?” the Master Sergeant said, amused. “You’ve been reassigned. 1st platoon, 66th Armored. Report to Sergeant Collier.”

“Bob, give me your smokes,” Norman said, without looking at him.

Gordo was happy, at least. They rolled past the refugees on their endless march, the pretty girl with the bike. Norman missed the Hitler Youth and Lt. Parker’s head got blown off. That hadn’t happened in a while. Norman thought that was maybe a good sign.

Norman didn’t shoot the Kraut in the back until Collier made him. He was trying to pretend he was a still a good man, slipping into an old uniform that didn’t quite fit anymore; the sight of the Kraut’s cranial cavity no longer threatened to send him off the deep end. It was just another day.

-

“ _Sie m_ _ü_ _ssen evakuieren. Es kommt ein Luftangriff,_ ” Norman said to Emma.

He didn’t see her body in the rubble. A good sign. Maybe.

-

Collier put him up in the main turret, B­ible’s usual spot, as they rolled out to hold to crossroad. He pointed out a line of smoke on the horizon and watched Norman to see his reaction. “See that? That’s an entire town on fire.”

Norman wished he was glad. All he could think was that there were people living in that town, like Irma and Emma, like the old man that got shot in the head every time Collier asked him for directions. Maybe he hadn’t had all the humanity burned out of him yet.

“I started out this war killing Germans in Africa. Then France. Then Belgium. Now I’m killing Germans in Germany. It will end. Soon.” Collier looked up at the sky, his mouth set in a grim line. “But before it does a lot more people are going to die.”

“It all seems so pointless,” Norman commented. He couldn't remember how he'd reacted the first time Don said that to him.

“You're too young to be that cynical," Don told him. "We're the conquering heroes. Protectors of the free world."

Norman squinted at Don and changed the subject. "Hey, can you tell me about the radio?"

It was an SCR-508, a newer one; Collier showed him how to change frequencies with the radio crystals. Norman’s headset could only transmit messages within the tank, but Collier could radio all the way back to headquarters, even as they were peeling away on their lonely march towards the waiting Tiger.

-

“Radio’s fucked,” Don said with a sigh. “We’re on our own.”

“Let me look at it,” Norman said.

“Kid, you don’t know the first thing about radios,” Collier said, but Norman crawled out of his hatch anyways and circled around to the side; the Tiger had managed to punch through some of the Fury’s plating and now there was a hole the size of a baseball through the back of the radio. Norman squinted into it, but couldn’t make out much more than a nest of wires.

“Get in the fucking tank. Norman,” Collier said. “It doesn’t matter. We’re executing our mission. There’s a wave coming in, and we’re the rock to break that wave.”

Norman got back in the tank, thinking about his days as a series of waves rolling in; each a little different, but ultimately the same, time after time.

While they were stuck at the crossroads, Coon-ass let Norman borrow a screwdriver to take off the damaged plate over the radio. At the back of the radio, behind the bulky army-green plating, there were two little cylinders. One of them was busted, a mess of metal. A flattened bullet stuck out through the other side.

“What are those?” Norman asked.

Coon-ass peered over his shoulder. “Motors. Keeps the radio running. Shit, it would be good to have extras right about now.”

They have 24V printed on top in clear writing. Norman pried the broken one free; two cooper wires trail behind it. A twenty-four volt motor and two wires. That was all he needed.

-

It was only him and Don at the end again.

Norman wasn’t sure what to do about this thing, the strange mess of respect and lust and fear he was carrying for Don. He climbed up into the basket to sit next to him. He’d stopped hating Don, for what it was worth; he wished Don could remember that. He wished they were in Berlin.

“If the radio was working, do you think we could call in an airstrike?” he asked.

Don blinked slowly at him. He was dying. He always seemed togete shot in the same places. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, his voice barely more than a rumble.

The hatch creaked open, and two potato mashers drop in. Don raised his head with great effort. “Go,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Norman said and reached out, griping Don’s hand tightly. The grenades never really hurt that much.

**April 8 th, 1945**

“I need an extra 24V motor for the radio and copper wire,” Norman told the quartermaster.

The man squinted at him. “What unit are you in?”

“I’m in Lt. Parker’s tank. We’ve been having radio issues,” Norman said. “Hurry up. We’re moving out soon.”

The quartermaster stared at him, tapping his fingers on his desk. Norman tried to channel Sgt. Collier’s expression when he was in one of his murderous fits; inside, his heart was hammering hard against the strap of his duffel.

“All right,” the quartermaster said, after what felt like an eternity. “I’m writing this down, mind you. Motors ain’t free. The lieutenant owes me three dollars.”

“I’ll tell him that,” Norman said.

The extra motor felt as though it was burning through his chest pocket the whole while when he intercepted Collier and then met the unit. For the first time in a while, Norman was almost hopeful.

-

“ _Sie m_ _ü_ _ssen evakuieren. Es kommt ein Luftangriff,_ ” Norman said to Emma.

-

“Let me try to fix it,” Norman said in the field, the Tiger smoldering beside them. “I know radios.”

A lie. Collier was staring at him with the mic in his hands, clearly impatient to be off.

“Please,” Norman said, dangerously close to the very first time, crying in the field with Collier’s gun in his hands, pleading with him: please let me fix this.

“Fine,” Collier said. “You’ve got five minutes. Then we’re moving out.”

Norman and Coon-ass scrambled to open the plates on the Fury, revealing the smashed innards of the radio. Norman pried out the broken motor and pulled the fresh 24V one out of his pocket. He slotted it in, and then pulled it back out a second later when he realized he forgot to connect the wires. They twisted together easily. Norman popped the motor back into place.

It looked banged-up, and Norman’s heart dropped; he felt like he'd set it up wrong.

“Okay, try it,” he said.

“This is Love-One-Six, over,” Collier said into the mic.

A second passed. Then another. Norman dropped his head forward and exhaled hard. He could feel tears welling in his eyes, dangerously close to embarrassing himself again. It was stupid, but for the first time in a while he'd hoped they actually might make it out.

A crackle. Norman’s head shot up.

The quality was terrible, and it wavered in and out, but there was a voice on the other side of the radio. “Love-One-Six, this is Love Actual. What’s your status? Over.”

Norman almost did weep at that, the tired voice of the captain’s messenger coming in clear. Coon-ass thumped hard him on the shoulder. “Nice work, Norman.”

“We’re the only ones left,” Collier said. “Ran into a Tiger in the field. We’re getting towards our objective. Over.”

There was a long pause before the radio crackled to life. “Roger that. Over and out.”

They mounted up, and Norman thought about how they could still get out of this. They didn’t need to win the fight. They just needed to not fight at all.

-

Gordo drove over the mine. This time they were able to radio it in. Norman got sent out on guard duty. He wandered up the road, waited for five minutes, and then came sprinting back.

“Good evening, Private Norman,” Collier said as Norman ran up to the Fury. “Why aren’t you at your post?”

Norman managed to spit it out, between gasps of breath; he wasn’t exaggerating the fear. “Two, maybe three hundred soldiers. Up the road. Twenty minutes away.”

“Tanks?” Collier said sharply.

“No,” Norman said. “Transport trucks.”

He hoped like hell Collier would do what Norman wanted him to do. After looking at the horizon for a moment, Collier climbed up to the command basket and picked up the radio mic. Norman tried to remember how to breathe. “Love-Actual, this is Love-One-Six.”

Captain Waggoner must have been waiting by the radio, because he replied instantly. “What’s your status, Love-One-Six?”

“We’ve got two, maybe three hundred Wehrmacht soldiers coming up the road, about twelve klicks away. No tanks,” Collier said, and then said to Norman, “Any anti-air?” Norman shook his head. “No ack-ack. Over.”

Silence from the other end.

A burst of static. “You fix that tread?” Captain Waggoner said. He sounded tired. Tired enough to abandon radio protocol. Maybe it didn’t matter since they were all going to die anyways, despite the working radio, despite everything.

“Nope,” Collier said. “Bogey’s still busted. We’re not going anywhere, sir.”

There was no response from headquarters. The seconds dragged on. They were all clustered around the radio, trapped in the silence; Gordo’s cigarette was burning down to a long column of ash, and Bible had the good book open in his hand, the wind ruffling the tiny pages. Thrushes were chirping in the trees. The sun was going down slowly behind the grey clouds.

“We’re sending a P47,” the captain said, almost lost to the distortion in the radio. “Make sure you stay out of his way. Stay with the Fury and pick off any survivors. Good luck, gentlemen.”

“Roger that, Captain,” Collier said.

“May God guide your bullets,” the captain added. “See you on the other side.”

Norman felt like he just licked a live wire; the hair on his arms and the back of his neck was standing up. Otherwise, it was the same routine. They laid the corpse on the Fury with Coon-ass’s helmet on his head, doused him with gasoline and lit him up; then they buttoned up in the tank to wait.

Norman heard the familiar clink of the brandy bottle behind him, but Don didn’t say his usual line. When Norman craned his head, he saw Don had taken it out and was studying it, turning it over in his hands.

Don sighed. “I’ve been saving this one, boys,” he said, and then stowed it away. “Let’s save it for one more night.”

They passed around the remaining Lucky Strikes instead. Norman said, “Hey, give one here.”

Gordo frowned at him. “I thought you didn’t smoke.”

Norman shrugged. Gordo lit two, then passed one over to Norman. Taking a long drag on it, Norman burst out into a coughing fit. The other men cracked up.

“Damn, son,” Coon-ass said, reaching down to slap him on the back of the head. “You’re a fucking machine.”

“That’s it, that’s his war name,” Collier said. “Machine.”

It was like a fist clenched over his heart; Norman couldn’t help but smile. His hand was shaking when he took the cigarette out of his mouth. Hope bloomed white in his chest.

“Don’t give away our position, Machine. Could probably hear you all the way in Berlin,” Gordo joked, fingers resting on the triggers to aim the turret, tapping on them lightly without moving them.

They smoked and waited. Silence curled up in the tobacco smoke. The stamp of feet and the faint singing filtered in through the hatches as the light faded.

“That’s an SS troop,” Collier said.

In the distance, so faint Norman almost thought he was imaging it, he could hear the whine of an engine. He’d heard something like it that morning. It sounded like the drone of a wasp in the summer. He hoped he would eventually make it out of this chilly April day and into August, eating ripe strawberries and sleeping in the sun, troubled only by the insects.

“There it is,” Collier said, a second later.

The drone of the engine was coming quickly now. Norman leaned in towards his periscope, waiting to see it. The Germans had to know there was something coming.

It was so fast he almost missed it overhead – a mottled moss and olive green fighter plane roared past them with a noise like thunder, bearing down on the road. It crested the hill just a second later, dropping bombs that looked tiny from the periscope. The first lines of the SS troops were barely visible.

For a moment, there was just the receding sound of the plane. Some shouts in German. And then, the explosions.

The men in the tank all whooped. The flash seared through Norman’s eyes but he didn’t blink, transfixed by the fireball that rose up above the road in the darkening sky and then burnt out into a column of ash. A few moments later and he heard the rattle of a machine gun as the plane returned, ripping low to the ground on a strafing run. Men were screaming. A lonely _panzerfaust_ rocket trailed off into the night, too late to touch the plane.

It pulled up and roared past the Fury, gaining altitude and peeling off into the night, back home to the roost.

“He’s done his job. Now let’s do ours,” Collier said, and then added, “Hope he killed some of those sons-of-bitches.”

They waited, hunched in the Fury, for the onslaught to begin. Norman wanted to pray, but he was out of words. All he could think was _please_.

-

The end, when it came, came slowly; the stragglers of the unit marched over the hill almost half an hour later. There were a lot fewer of them. No vehicles and horses accompanied them.

Parts of it were the same as they always were. A fire squad climbed on the Fury to inspect the tank. When they did, Collier blew them away, and the nightmare began. Bible sent a shell down the middle of the road. The men scattered into the farmhouse and died when the white phosphorus exploded.

There couldn’t have been more than fifty men standing against them by that time, and their bullets rained down on the Fury to no avail; one by one they got chopped down by the guns. Norman got the one pair that always tried to fire a rocket into Coon-ass’s chest. His aim had improved throughout the series of days.

Eventually the firing slowed, and then stopped. The smoke hung all around them, glowing orange from the burning farmhouse. “Keep watching,” Don said. He locked the hatches on the tank, the first time he’d done that. “Save your ammo.”

Norman wondered if that meant he thought they’d survive, and then shoved that thought away. It was too early to think that. The rest could still be coming over the hill.

They were all jumpy. Norman felt like he was going crazy, peering into his periscope through the red-tinged smoke, trying to spot shadows. He didn’t see many. He gunned down a few men trying to dart closer, but he knew there must be more out there. Any of them could be closing in with an anti-tank rocket.

The night dragged on, pitiless. Every now and then one of the other men fired a few rounds out into the night. Gordo tossed a grenade out and killed three men who were setting up a mortar. Going out to get more ammunition, Collier got nicked in the arm and Bible patched him up with a rag and some sulfa powder.

Norman didn’t know what time it was – it was still dark, but maybe lightening up – when he heard footsteps. “Fuck,” he said, his body going cold. “There’s more coming!”

The men all fumbled to get to the periscopes; Coon-ass and Bible had been dozing, exhausted after the long night.

“There’s nothing in front of us,” Gordo said, a hint of alarm in his voice.

“Holy fuck,” Coon-ass said. “It’s the 66th.”

“Let me see,” Collier said, dropping down next to Coon-ass and taking the scope. Norman twisted to look at him. All he could make out from his periscope were bodies; he would have to trust what Collier saw.

Collier was silent for a while, staring through the scope. The dim light made it hard to see what he was thinking. They were all looking at him now, relaxing their constant scan of the ground in front of them. Four sets of eyes. Norman was stunned they were all still there, barely a scratch between them.

“Sergeant Collier?” Norm ventured.

Collier sat back heavily and rubbed his hand over his face, leaving streaks of gunpower. “Looks like it’s Charlie and Dog company out there. Typical of them to miss all the action.”

None of them said anything, but they sat back heavily, easing into the thought that they might survive after all. Don lit up a cigarette, passed his pack around. Norm took one. The moment hung on. Norm met Don’s gaze and held it.

-

The 66th had brought a team of medics and a half-track. The medics re-bound Collier’s injury, the only one in the tank, and then they were sent back to the town in the half-track. Nobody told Norman he was a hero this time. He guessed what they did wasn’t all that heroic, which was fine; they’d all lived.

He spared a thought for the German boy who left him under the tank to live the first time. It made no sense, that Norman could keep kicking the can down the road, and that kid had to die.

Around the Fury there was a ring of bodies two deep, and further down, the road was still smoking from the bomb drop, although there was already a truck full of engineers headed towards it. An operations crew was swarming over the Fury. The war went on.

The rest of the men fell asleep pretty quick once they pulled away from the charred skeleton of the farmhouse, heads lolling against the dirty glass. Norman wished he could sleep. He was afraid to close his eyes.

He smoked another cigarette, lost in thought. Part of him thought he should be figuring it out, what it meant that they survived. On the face of it, it didn’t seem worth it if it was divine intervention, the lives of five sinful men. The other part of him was thinking about a hot meal and a bed; he hadn’t had a hot meal since he started the day all those days ago.

Collier came to sit next to him, plucking the cigarette from out of Norman’s mouth. “That’s a nasty habit,” Collier said, putting it in his own mouth.

Norman stared at him, too exhausted to react.

Whatever teasing light was in Collier’s eyes dropped. “It’s okay, kid. What we did out there… we did our jobs. That’s all there was to it.”

“We should be dead,” Norman said.

Collier studied him, not saying anything, eyes dropping to Norman’s mouth.

Norman kept talking, staring at his hand, the double life line on his palm. “I was scared shitless. This whole time. It didn’t even matter. If we died the troops would have just taken it this morning anyways.”

“They didn’t have the reinforcements yesterday,” Collier said. “The SS would have marched on the logistics support team, all the cooks and operation coordinators and clerks, and blown them the fuck up. Would have fucked the whole march to Berlin. That was our mission. We stopped that. _You_ stopped that.”

Norman hadn’t known about that. “I didn’t do shit.”

“That was some trick you pulled with the radio,” Collier said, propping his feet out in front of him and studying them. He offered the cigarette back to Norman. “That wasn’t nothing.”

Norman just kept looking at him. After a moment, Collier reached out and tucked the cigarette back in Norman’s mouth, fingers brushing against his lips.

Maybe he’d had it all twisted up; maybe whatever torch he was carrying for Collier would fade away. Maybe he’d wake up tomorrow. For now, Norman was just glad they were there together. “Sure, Sarge,” Norman said.

“I told you,” he said, and then smiled, a real one. “Call me Don.”

**April 9 th, 1945**

Norman woke up on the back of a truck and for a moment his whole body, from his heart to his guts, froze.

“No,” he said out loud. He couldn’t do this again, couldn’t keep living this same fucking day for a vast and hostile eternity. He’d done it. He saved them. It still hadn’t worked.

Someone gave him a light shove from behind. “Move, I’m fucking starving,” Coon-ass said.

Norman turned to look at him, slack-jawed.

Coon-ass looked like shit; behind him, so did Gordo and Bible, blinking awake. The truck had stopped. They were back in the town they took yesterday. There was an impromptu mess hall set up in the square, making breakfast. Norman could smell coffee.

“Come on, Norman,” Collier said from the ground, holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> This all started because I wanted to write a passionate handjob scene and only later realized the events of the movie took place over just one day, which left no time for passionate handjobs.


End file.
